Nintendo wants to build a billion dollar mobile game empire

by Milen Yanachkov / May 03, 2018, 5:44 AM

Nintendo wants to build a billion dollar mobile game empire

Remember how adamant Nintendo was on not entering the mobile game business during the Wii and DS era? Oh, how things have changed. The company now has a bunch of really popular mobile games under its belt, and although it has up until now kept its promise that it wouldn't release a "full-fledged" title in one of its flagship franchises as a mobile game, things may be about to change.

Not in the sense that Nintendo will release the next grand Mario or Zelda adventure on Android and iOS, but in the sense that it will focus much more heavily on mobile than it's been so far. Incoming Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa is planning to focus on growing Nintendo’s small mobile games business with a “single game-changing hit,” Venture Beat reports, saying that his goal is to build a 100 billion yen (U.S. $910 million) mobile gaming business.

Nintendo's mobile business currently amounts to 39.3 billion yen (U.S. $358 million), which represents only around 4 percent of its total revenues. In order to achieve his goal, Furukawa will have to roughly triple the revenues coming in from mobile titles. No easy task, this, considering Nintendo's current reluctance to release console-quality, or at least close thereof, games on mobile. But the company's new president seems to have an idea.

According to Nikkei interview with Furukawa, he is looking for a title that mirrors the success of Pokémon Go, which he believes succeeded because developer Niantic managed to tailor the gameplay, story, and entire experience to better suit the smartphone format. Nintendo is certainly a company that knows how to play to a system's strengths—all you need is to take a look at a console Mario game and one of the handheld titles to see the fundamental differences and strengths of each—but Furukawa doesn't yet know what this heavy-hitter will be. “I can’t say that there are any that are like that” in development, Furukawa told Nikkei.

source: Nikkei via VentureBeat

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12 Comments

1. KingSam

Posts: 1426; Member since: Mar 13, 2016

Bring Mario kart to mobile and smile to the bank. There are a lot of Nintendo staples but I wonder if they will undermine Nintendo console sales.

posted on May 03, 2018, 6:07 AM 2

2. Botnet64

Posts: 19; Member since: Apr 09, 2018

So maybe they will ditch the 3DS line entirely, and focus on the Switch and mobile ports ?

posted on May 03, 2018, 6:28 AM 0

6. worldpeace

Posts: 3129; Member since: Apr 15, 2016

3DS is already 7 years old, it's time to ditch it, and Switch is just slightly more expensive than 3DS (launch price) and it's the best console right now IMO (don't care about graphic quality of consoles, since I already got PC if I want to play AAA titles)

posted on May 03, 2018, 7:12 AM 2

3. midan

Posts: 2751; Member since: Oct 09, 2017

They would have done this already if their Mario game would have been real Mario instead that runner crap

posted on May 03, 2018, 7:00 AM 0

5. japkoslav

Posts: 1500; Member since: Feb 19, 2017

And how would you control the "real Mario game" on something as flimsy a touchscreen?

posted on May 03, 2018, 7:05 AM 2

7. midan

Just like everyone else is doing, with on-screen buttons for example.

posted on May 03, 2018, 7:32 AM 0

10. LikeMyself

Posts: 631; Member since: Sep 23, 2013

Like conventional controls, but on-screen. I play tons of games on emulators like ppsspp, drastic ds, nes, ps1 & never have I been bothered by the on-screen controls. Megaman mobile did that & the controls are great. It was not very successful because it was paid, was not very smooth & playing megaman on nes emulator was smoother. I play God of War with ppsspp & controls were never a problem. It's just an excuse to not develop conventional controls for mobile. Limbo is a fine example of good controls for mobile

posted on May 03, 2018, 8:49 AM 0

11. japkoslav

To be honest I am really not a fan of masochism. BTW: Limbo is slow, there is not really a lot of situations where you need to act quickly and be precise. + Sure God of War is no problem on a touchscreen ... on easy.

posted on May 03, 2018, 12:40 PM 0

4. japkoslav

If I look at top ten apps on Android and iOS Clash Royale, Gods and Glory ... all I can see is crap. And a lot of people buy this crap ... is there even a challenge for some experienced developers like Nintendo? Hopefully, they won't go down with their legendary software experience just to milk those sweet microtransaction $$$.

posted on May 03, 2018, 7:03 AM 0

8. whatev

Posts: 2218; Member since: Oct 28, 2015

If they bring Zelda, Metroid and xenoblade to mobile with decent gameplay, not an endless runner with Nintendo’s characters, Gameloft and other game developers for mobile will be quaking

posted on May 03, 2018, 8:08 AM 0

9. 47AlphaTango

Posts: 719; Member since: Sep 27, 2015

Nintendo want's to build a billion dollar mobile game empire? Consider making a pokemon adventure game on both ios and android. And it will surely earn billions in just 6 months!